Two Weeks Tramping in the Kaweka Ranges as a 17 Year Old with Olly Dow

It had been a hot minute since I'd recorded, so I was really really glad this was the chat to get me back into it. Olly listens to the show, and he's one of the keenest trampers I've talked to.

Olly is super passionate about tramping and anything outdoors, and he's been heading into the bush without an adult since his first overnight trip with a mate. That trip kicked off the biggest hobby of his life so far. And he spent the start of his summer on an 11-day tramp through the Kaweka and Kaimanawa ranges, on a plan that was meant to go a lot further.

So we get into that trip: the planning spreadsheet, the food drop, the river crossing that turned them around, and a day-two feast with some very generous hunters. Then Olly shares his luxury items, why a good raincoat is worth the money, the huge cape to cape route he's dreaming up next, and his advice for anyone wanting to get out more.

In this episode

• How Olly got into tramping
• Youth Search and Rescue and an inReach
• Eleven days in the Kaweka and Kaimanawa ranges
• Planning a two-week tramp and turning back
• A day-two feast with the hunters
• Luxury items and a good raincoat
• East Cape to Cape Egmont, and Olly's advice

How Olly got into tramping

One of Olly's first tramps was up the Pinnacles in the Coromandel, which he calls pretty popular for first-timers. He's been up since on a clear day, and the views are pretty awesome.

I have a bit of beef with the Pinnacles. We walked through the night to get up there for sunrise, and there was so much cloud I could see nothing. I was really really mad about it, and I haven't been back. I think I'm finally ready to try again.

Olly will never forget the night a mate asked him to come on his first overnight trip without an adult (two nights, in the end). It took a bit of convincing at home, but he says it's been one of the best things he's ever done for his confidence, and it started the biggest hobby he's had so far.

He used to hassle a couple of mates to come along, and only recently has he not had to try so hard.

Youth Search and Rescue and an inReach

A big part of that is Youth Search and Rescue, or YSAR. It runs as three cohorts of around 20 students, and they spend pretty much a weekend a month out in the bush together, under tarps, learning search and rescue skills. They become your best friends pretty fast, so these days Olly asks in the group chat.

I have so much respect for search and rescue, and for the volunteers who fly the helicopters when someone pulls their PLB. I can't imagine outdoor adventure without that safety blanket.

Olly carries an inReach, and it plays a massive part in being allowed out. He turns the tracking on, and he can message home and be messaged whenever needed. He's been impressed by how well it works: on a couple of recent trips floating down rivers on cheap pool floaties, it still dropped tracking points in tight gorges and thick bush.

Eleven days in the Kaweka and Kaimanawa ranges

The first trip of Olly's summer was a notable one: 11 days in the Kawekas and Kaimanawas, in the central North Island. The Kaimanawas run roughly north to south on the Tongariro side, and the Kawekas sit alongside them on the Napier side.

They started at the top, southeast of Taupō, walking in from a road called Clements Mill Road. It was essentially all on track.

What drew Olly to these ranges was the elevation and the sense of alpine tramping. In the Kaimai Range, you can't get very high. He's also tramped in Tongariro National Park, which is mostly scrubby and low-lying. The Kawekas and Kaimanawas have bush as well as height, so you get both:

• High, open tops of gravel and scree
• Valleys with big flowing rivers, awesome for a swim
• Giant beech trees, super tall

Planning a two-week tramp and turning back

The reason Olly wanted to talk about this trip was the planning. The original plan was to walk from Clements Mill almost all the way to Palmerston North, a lot further than they ended up going. It was going to be a two-week trip, maybe even longer, and longer than anything he'd planned before.

So he laid it all out in a spreadsheet, roughly guessed where they'd end up each day, and planned the heck out of it. He started almost a year before they walked it. In that year he spent a lot more nights in the bush, gaining experience as he went, and came to realise he'd probably done a bit too much planning. So some of it went out the window.

He has a Te Araroa guidebook sitting next to him, and he uses it sometimes. It's taught him something:

"What I have noticed is there's no timeframes for how long anything's going to take and I think that's kind of the beauty of it"

Once a trip runs longer than the weather forecast, you're never going to get an accurate forecast for the end of it. At that point, it is what it is, and you go with the flow.

When I walked the Old Ghost Road solo over summer, it was my longest tramp ever, at five days. Even the planning for that was such a step up from an overnighter. I went over my gear over and over again, and ended up cutting plasters out of my first aid kit to save weight.

The food drop and the Taruarau River

They had a bucket of food dropped at Kuripapango, on the Napier-Taihape Road, roughly their halfway point at the end of the Kawekas. That's the boundary between the Ruahines and the Kawekas.

Next on the route was the Taruarau River, with a massive descent just to cross it and a big climb back up the other side. They didn't know the area well, Olly had never been there before, and it had been raining for days, so he was relying on the river measuring stations, which only tell you so much. They decided it would be safer, and probably more enjoyable, to pull a U-turn. They picked up the food and headed back north through the Kawekas on a different route.

He'd had no idea at the start that there would be rain on days five and six. You can't plan for everything.

A day-two feast with the hunters

Olly's favourite moment came early, on day two. It was a big day, and right at the end they tackled a pretty horrible stream. There was apparently a track, but they ended up walking down the stream for a long way. They'd expected it, which helped, but it still sucked, and they were pretty pooped.

They stumbled into the hut at 6 in the evening to find four hunters staying there. Only one was in the hut, chatting to the others on little radios while they were out in the bush. Within 10 seconds of Olly walking in, one came through on the radio to say he'd just shot a deer.

Within a couple of hours they were sitting in the hut, set up for bed, eating massive venison backsteaks, plus trout the hunters had caught in the river below. The hunters had flown in by helicopter for a couple of days, and they treated them like crazy.

It was a big upgrade. Olly's own meals for the first week were mashed potato and ramen noodles, going for lightweight. As he figured out, it's not great nutritionally. A 600 metre climb on one of the days felt more like a thousand.

If that had happened to me on day two, I'd have walked back out happy.

What Olly learned

His biggest lesson was to stop over-planning. There's a very fine line, though. On his next trip, a week in the Tararuas near Wellington, he went the other way, and on the second night ended up at a hut on the tops with no water. There were no streams either. Sure enough, the DOC website said the tank had been leaking for about a year, and he hadn't done the research. So now he's figured out where the line lies.

Luxury items and a good raincoat

Olly hadn't thought about his luxury items before, but a few came to mind:

• Slides or hut shoes, so he doesn't have to wear wet boots at the end of the day
• His inReach, which almost counts, because a standard PLB would do the safety job. With the inReach he can look at forecasts and check whether he's on track, which is very nice when you can't screenshot the whole forecast before you go
• An inflatable pillow, maybe

On the Old Ghost Road, I noticed lots of people had the same yellow inflatable pillow. I stuffed my puffer jacket into a stuff sack instead.

Why a three-layer raincoat is worth it

A few people have asked me about raincoats lately, so I asked Olly. He works in an outdoor gear store, and his advice is to look for a three-layer jacket. When you're wearing your backpack and it's bucketing down, water can seep through a thinner jacket, no matter how water resistant it is, so a thicker shell is worth the weight. His is fairly heavy compared to what you can get, and it's probably the best thing he's bought, because it's useful well beyond the rain:

"when I run out of things to keep me warm I just throw my jacket on top and it holds some heat."

It stops the wind too. His take is that you can't really work around paying good money for a good jacket: you get what you pay for, and you won't regret it.

I have no idea how many layers my raincoat has. My husband Isaac picked it out for himself, I borrowed it, loved it, and got one of my own. A good raincoat is such a key piece of gear in Aotearoa, because hypothermia is a real risk out there, and it might decide whether you end up pulling your PLB.

Olly agrees. One of the biggest skills he's learned from time in the bush is using his clothing well: when you're cold, out of layers and everything's wet, knowing what you can actually do to keep yourself out of a sticky situation.

East Cape to Cape Egmont, and Olly's advice

Olly gets bored and starts drawing lines on maps, linking up things that are way too far apart. The latest is a route from the East Cape to Cape Egmont in Taranaki. From what he can find, only one person has properly done it, and he's written a book about it that Olly is yet to read. It's a long way, so he's already trying to drag some mates into it, though he hasn't given them the full story yet.

I once had Russell on the podcast, who walked from Napier to Taranaki. And cape to cape is probably the widest crossing you can do in Aotearoa, which Olly reckons is probably right.

He's decided it's a bit much to walk the whole thing, so it'll be multisport, with bikes for part of the way. Kayaking the Whanganui River isn't decided yet, because he's trying not to plan too much and has no idea how long it'll take to get there. Drawing the lines and trying to make them work is great fun.

His advice for anyone wanting to get out more is to just do it and get the ball rolling. Be the person who sorts out the trip and gets a whole group of mates out. It's been the best thing he's ever done for his self-confidence, and his screen time drops rapidly. And find people who can take you out, or join a club, to grow those roots:

"common sense out in the Bush is very important … the only way you can get that is by just spending time out in the Bush"

Places from this episode

• Kaweka Range
• Kaimanawa Range
• Clements Mill Road
• Kuripapango
• Napier-Taihape Road
• Taruarau River
• Ruahine Range
• Tongariro National Park
• Kaimai Range
• The Pinnacles, Coromandel
• Tararua Range
• East Cape
• Cape Egmont, Taranaki
• Whanganui River
• Old Ghost Road

More like this

• Three Teens' 900km Cape to Cape Human Powered Journey with Olly, Will and Thomas
• Eight Days in the Kaimai Mamaku Ranges with Jenifer Silva
• Solo Tramping the Mangamate Loop in Whirinaki Forest Park with Sharon Evans
• Off-Track Tramping to the Unknown in Rockburn Valley with Sarah Morrison

Until then, keep adventuring :)